Love Letters
by La Donna Ingenua
Summary: In the distant future/AU. "Sometimes they send one another postcards. Glossy tourist attractions on one side not withstanding, this is how they know where the other is. Of course, you can only say so much on a postcard. There is protection against saying too much." They were together & happy. Now they are apart. Is it possible to find one another again?
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: So I'm new to this fandom and I never thought I would write anything for Vampire Diaries. I never thought I would watch it either. But here I am! This story is AU in that it takes place in the somewhat distant future. You'll catch my drift. I hope. (Gulp) If you want to get into the mood for the story, go ahead and play the Avett Brother's "If it's the beaches." Thanks for reading._

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Chapter One

Sometimes they send one another postcards. Glossy tourist attractions on one side not withstanding, this is how they know where the other is and they need to know where the other is to inhale and then exhale. Of course, you can only say so much on a postcard but that is why they choose those four by six pieces of thick paper. There is protection against saying too much. They are careful even with thousands of miles constantly separating them. They are careful with their words instead of careless.

So Damon writes about the gelato in Rome and the macaroons in Paris. But they still know one another too well: when he receives the card with a lovely shot of the golden gate bridge on one side and her scrawl on the other (_Everyone has dogs here. It's tempting to get one too, but I don't_) he knows what Elena is really telling him (_I still don't understand the concept of eternity but I am learning a little more every day and the life span of a dog is but a breath_ _in time_). Postcards keep them safe, apart but not without one another, hands brushing, lingering, aching to grab hold but unable or unwilling to lace fingers and truly touch.

Damon knows that Stefan and Elena exchange letters, long letters with numbered pages. He knows because occasionally he sees his brother and Stefan doesn't try to hide it. Neither of them have her so why shouldn't he leave a letter out for Damon to find and read? Why shouldn't he mention Elena's favorite coffee spot in San Francisco or that she learned to love oysters? Stefan becomes the gypsy, showing Damon all his wares and Damon nods and sips his drink and lets it go because it is all so stupid.

He read the letter about the coffee shop and the oysters, too and he felt only sympathy for his brother because it was so clear that in these letters Elena was trying to give Stefan what he wanted, pieces of the girl he rescued under the Wickery Bridge, the first time, but not the second. Elena can only give him pieces of that girl in letters because Stefan will never hold or kiss or touch that girl again because she is _dead. _That girl once promised, _"It will always be Stefan," _but that girl couldn't understand what a word like _always _really meant. She did not have the capacity for such a vow, not before she died and woke up, gasping for breath, to a new life where always meant something wholly different. Damon can't bring himself to tell his brother this. Let him keep his letters and his fantasies if they make him happy.

The ache for Elena is constant and sporadic all at once, like an illness one grows so used to over time that he never sees a doctor over it. Damon still remembers what it felt like to be sick, if he tries hard enough–a darkened room, cool hands against his forehead, and scratchy pajamas. He remembers the werewolf bite too–their first kiss.

_I like you now, _she said then.

Still human, it could only be about _the now_ and not about _the always_. She said as much when she said goodbye to him, years ago. "Can't we just find our way back to one another someday?" she cried to him with such passion it made him ache. "We have all the time in the world, Damon!"

They fought then, bitterly and cruelly, until too much was said to be undone. That was their problem; they said too much, loved too much, fought too much, wanted too much until they were so far away from that moment in front of the fireplace, the summer before she went to college, when she chose him. They destroyed whatever they built.

It took a year for her to even contact him after that, via postcard, where she could not say too much.

_I like it here. _One sentence and a return address in San Francisco written with a bleeding pen. But he knew her heart; he could trace her face in the dark and he knew what she meant: _I miss you but I like my life now. I'm living it. And we can be in touch but only a little. If that's enough for you._

He wrote back: _I'm glad _and he knew that she would know how much he missed her and yet how happy he could be for her even if her life did not include him. Even if it hurt him. Even if. He considered adding: _And if you're ever in Barcelona... _but didn't because she very clearly set a boundary and holding his tongue on that first postcard opened up an old wound when he remembered telling her fiercely: _It's _because_ I love you._

And her harsh response: _Maybe that's the problem._

So he didn't add his comment about Barcelona, his allusion to them ever being together again. He just stuck his hand in his pockets, searching for Euro coins to pay for a stamp for a postcard with two words on it.

She replied. _Do you like Barcelona? _which meant: _Are you happy? Because I hope that you are._

_Some days, _his next postcard read because he could be content but never happy without her.

Maybe that's the problem.

Why he is thinking about that night, so many years and fights and make ups later, is a mystery to him and he turns his pillow over so it is cool against his cheek, as if this will be the thing to help him sleep tonight.

And these postcards, exchanged now for years, a whole stack...Maybe he is as stupid and as hopeless as Stefan. Because no, it won't always be Stefan. But maybe it won't always be Damon either.

He sighs and the sheet shifts and he cannot get comfortable or fall asleep because of the fucking postcard he pulled from his small mailbox in Rome this morning. His undead heart lifted when he saw the glossy image of a trolley and he smirked at their unsaid contest for the cheesiest of tourist attractions marking their correspondences. Silently competing at something so stupid made it easier somehow.

This time, in her sometimes illegible writing, he read: _I still haven't ridden a trolley. Have you ever? I guess I'm waiting. _

Though he translated every single one of her other postcards, hell if he knew what this one meant and now hours later, unable to sleep, he still doesn't. He'd liked to shake her.

What are you trying to say?

What do you want?

But.

He did that once before, just after she graduated college, while they were looking for a place together. He felt like he was in his own personal version of Goldilocks; she did not like any of them. This one was too big; this one was too small. This one had too much light; this one not enough. And on it went until one day he finally yanked the wheel of his beloved car and pulled over to the side of the road. He was frustrated and confused and he couldn't read her face anymore so he half yelled, "What _will _make you happy? What the hell do you want from me?"

"Free," she cried as if she'd been waiting for him to ask the question. "I want to be free." Her doe eyes looked ashamed then, wishing she could pull the words back into herself, the words that started the unwinding of what was once two inseparable people wrapped together (always touching, even if it was only pinkies, or a foot pressed to a calf) now on two separate sides of the world, sending one another the occasional postcard.

Damn her. He doesn't want to remember. Damn him too. He doesn't want to forget.

So he does not sleep but instead turns her words over in his mind, trying to parse out their meaning.

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_A/N: So since this is my first foray into this fandom, I would so appreciate your thoughts on this! I'm pretty insecure about this._


	2. Chapter 2

_A/N: I'm still so nervous about writing for this new fandom! I mean, I am used to writing in a much different style. Still, this is fun an I am enjoying it a lot._

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Chapter Two

The stack of postcards make his place in Rome feel small; hell, they make the whole damn city feel small which is hard, if not impossible to do. Leave it to Elena Gilbert's single sentences to accomplish the impossible.

He goes to Florence to escape. He does the whole sight seeing thing and his awe isn't an act when he looks up at that rose and green gilded Duomo or stares at the the David, looking for a human imperfection and finds none.

He always wanted to bring her here. "Don't you want to go some place you've never been?" she asked. They were naked, tired in the best way, and cuddled together so her eyelashes brushed his cheeks every time she blinked.

His hand slid from her hip to weave through her hair. "I've been everywhere." He smirked lazily when she pinched his side.

"Your ego is enormous," she replied and snuggled closer.

"Elena, how many times do I have to tell you _that's _not my ego?" She giggled and they rolled over. "Here let me show you."

Yes, they were the King and Queen of pillow talk but he never told her that the lazy, beautiful _after _was just as important as the intense frenzy of the _during. _He didn't have the vocabulary to tell her; he only had hands and lips and tongue to show her.

So he did.

After the museum and the David, he walks to the Ponte Vecchio where the sun is bright and hot and all the jewelry stores blend together in front of his eyes. He wants to blow a lot of money on something. It will make him feel better, won't it? He picks a store at random and within two seconds he spots it–a delicate band of sapphires in white gold, with the thinnest line of yellow gold outlining the band. It's beautiful, one of a kind, and expensive. He doesn't even compel the clerk for fun. He just buys it and pretends he didn't just buy something for the girl he hasn't seen in years.

She went on Spring Break, with Caroline, her freshman year at college, to Mexico. He watched her pack tiny bikini after tiny tiny bikini into her suitcase and tried not to pout. "Stop pouting," she commanded, grinning.

"You have the vervain I gave you, just in case?" he asked. "And you won't lose your daylight ring in the ocean or something stupid like that? And if anything is off you and Blondie will call me–"

Elena turned and wrapped her arms around his neck. She rubbed her nose against his. Then she kissed him, in that long lingering way of hers that made his belly ache. "So I know you've never really been a boyfriend before but this is where you say you love me and you'll miss me and that Caroline and I should stay together and that I should watch my drinks so no one can roofie me."

"You're right," he smirked against her mouth. "Don't let anyone vervain your margarita."

Caroline beeped long and hard. Blondie hated to wait.

"Whatever," Elena rolled her eyes. "I love_ you_. I'll miss _you_. And you better call me."

"Every night," he promised and boosted her up so her legs wrapped around his hips and he could cup her ass while carrying her suitcase.

"And you'll miss me?" she breathed into his ear.

"Well, I'll miss _that_," he retorted sarcastically and she punched him in the shoulder.

Blondie was halfway down the driveway when the car stopped and Elena rolled down the window to yell at him. "Hey Damon!" she shouted and he grinned because damn it, he was going to miss her. "I'm still not sorry!"

_I'm not sorry either. I'm not sorry that I met you. I'm not sorry that knowing you has made me question everything, that in death you're the one that made me feel the most alive. You've been a terrible person; you've made all the wrong choices and of all the choices I've made this will prove to be the worst one, but I'm not sorry that I love you, Damon._

That moment in front of the fireplace is engraved in his memory no matter where he goes–Florence, Rome, or freaking Bali. So when did she start to feel sorry? He could never pinpoint _that _moment.

She wanted to go to college and he supported that. She wanted to live in the dorms that first year, have the real experience, and he supported that too. Sometimes she would look at him with narrowed eyes and he wished he could go back and say, "If you're waiting for me to hold you back, you'll be waiting for an eternity. Literally."

But by her senior year she lived in apartment alone, way off campus and it was she who begged him to stay just another day. The fridge was full of blood bags and they slept naked wrapped around one another like puppies. She pressed snooze twice every single morning and blearily cursed her schedule until he rolled her over and slid into her with hooded eyes, while she let out one long moan. "Time to wake up, 'Lena," he murmured while she gasped and clutched his back. Her furniture was all from Ikea but her liquor cabinet was worth more than her rent, thanks to Damon, and she made room in her closet for his black shirts all on her own accord. It was so domestic and perfect until it wasn't; until she graduated and while looking for a place she screamed out the word, "Free!" like she was gulping for breath and made him feel like a prison guard.

He gets back to Rome late in the night, after two weeks away. He ignores the ring box in the pocket of his pants while the stack of postcards mock him from the kitchen table, most especially the last one, with the trolleys, the one he still hasn't responded to because if he did he would write: _what the hell are you trying to tell me?_

_I still haven't ridden a trolley. Have you ever? I guess I'm waiting._

He falls into bed with his pants still on and in the morning, over his espresso, he lies and tells himself he didn't dream of her. Later, he goes to get his mail, still without a shirt, his jeans low on his hips. His landlady, ninety and still kicking, pats her chest, the spot over her heart. "Dio Mio," she cries and then whistles at him.

"Grazie," he replies out of the side of his mouth.

She laughs at him and swats him with a dish towel. "Sei un diavolo!" She winks at him before leaving him to his business.

Damon doesn't expect another postcard from Elena. They never write until the other replies so he is beyond unprepared when there is another trolley postcard tucked in with the rest of his mail. He must be going crazy so he goes up to his apartment and sets it down next to his stack.

They never write until the other replies.

And yet.

Finally, he turns it over.

_I'm still not sorry. Are you?_

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_A/N: I am not one to beg for reviews at all but seriously, if you are reading, will you let me know what you think? I am so insecure in this new genre and fandom!_


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: So, please forgive me on a number of accounts. One, this–like the other chapters–is unbetaed but this time I am sick so please forgive me if there are more than the usual amount of errors. Secondly, thank you so much for the reviews and your thoughts and I so appreciate them. I still feel like a baby writing Damon and Elena. I will write you all back, just not tonight, unfortunately, because I need to sleep. Finally, I changed a bunch of things in this chapter while on nyquil so. I hope it still reads the way I'd like: giving you pieces of their past while moving forward._

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Chapter Three

There is a box–hand crafted and undoubtably expensive–where he stores all his Elena feelings: when he wakes in the middle of the night, reaching for her, finding the luxury of Egyptian cotton instead of her skin, or for moments like this, holding her postcard, when she can be so close and so far away at the same time.

He isn' t good at feelings. Everyone knows this. He's cracked necks over a little melancholy and with Elena there is always an avalanche of feelings (she has always called forth such strong emotions from, demanded it, from the very beginning; she never bought his cool detachment with all its charms). So, yes, she cried out the word _free_ and pleaded to be let go, as if she was a baby bird fisted in his hands, captured.

Though he knew baby vampires did tend to freak out every few years (there could be a few existential crisis in the first twenty, even thirty years of eternity) she _hurt _him when she chirped like a canary in a cage, imprisoned. Damon knew from the very beginning; this was _never _"Twilight." When he fell in love with Elena she was seventeen and he was 170 years old. He never asked her to stop being young and ridiculously naive (god, he never wanted to!). And yet there they were, arguing themselves into a break up.

Now, he was a 175 year old vampire who used to be be badass, drinking bourbon out of crystal, snapping spines because he liked the sound of it and before he knew it his bourbon was in a red solo cup and he was editing her term papers in History 101 because, hey, he actually lived it, and not even hating it. That was the truth of it: he didn't even hate it because his life also included afternoon delights between classes, feeling her belly laugh at a dry joke while they curled together, making her late in the mornings, in the shower, her long wet hair fisted around his hand twice.

Until she cried for her freedom and he said horrible, bitter, cruel things.

"What the hell is this, Elena?" He remembered the sound of his fist against the steering wheel. "You want to be free?" He was shouting now. He didn't even know if he meant what he was yelling. "Well, maybe I do too. Maybe I'm glad that four years of frat parties and quizzing you before finals is over and now we can actually be–"

"_Dead_?" she yelled back at him, face fierce and passionate and lovely. "Together and dead," she repeated.

"I was going to say together but yeah, Elena, now that you mention it we are dead too," he retorted sarcastically pushing his head against his seat.

"Why did you even let me go to college, Damon?" she asked venomously even as she wept. He wanted to reach for her, to comfort her but his hands would not work. "What was the point?"

"Elena." He tried to claim boredom. "Don't know if you're just getting the memo but no one exactly _lets _you do anything."

"So what has the last four years been? You placating the recently deceased? Letting me cling to the illusions of my humanity?" She grew more hysterical by the minute as if all this was stored up waiting to break free.

"Oh, I've _seen_ you without the illusion of humanity, Elena, and once was enough for me. Thanks."

She wept and wept.

They destroy whatever they build.

There are magic rings that breathe life back into bodies but there are no take backs, no do overs when you are in the middle of the end of something as important as what they were or had once been to one another. There is no going back once cruel things are said. Compelling memories away is not even viable magic because he knew he was the person (the undead person, sure) willing to say those cruel things in the first place and anyway, they are both vampires so rings don't work and compelling does not work. They should be dead. They never should have met and when Damon walks down such a dark, rabbit hole, he ends up with a glass of bourbon in his hands and dead bodies at his feet...or in this case an imaginary box full of feelings.

They destroy whatever they build.

He reminds himself of that. He clenches his hands into fists whenever he feels the urge to write her back. He cannot go back and he cannot go on. He hurts her and she hurts him and they destroy whatever they build.

_I will always choose you._

But not three weeks after the second postcard (a miracle with the Italian mail system), she sends another card, another damn trolley. It includes a time, a date, a flight number and the words: _If you're there, I guess I'll know your answer. _

He tells himself there is no way in hell he is going to the airport. But he tells himself a lot of things all the time. He argues with himself too, so he is late, of course. He cannot find her in the middle of the crowded airport and thinks she is gone and wouldn't that just be his luck?

But then he sees a pair of long tan legs, peeking out from a corner.

There is a pyramid of empty, mini bottles of liquor (from the airplane, he supposes) next to her on the floor, poorly constructed, about to topple over. Her head is down, dark hair falling over her simple white dress that falls just above the knees. He knows the moment she spots his black boots because she takes a shuddering breath and then raises her eyes to meet his.

Damon greets her with a dry comment, the only welcome she will get: "Well, I don't remember this part in _Roman Holiday_."

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_A/N: I'd love to know what you think. The next chapter will be from Elena's point of view and I am so nervous!_


	4. Chapter 4

_A/N: I put my pajamas on and was about to get into bed and just said, I will finish the chapter tomorrow. But then I thought of you all and your amazing support (I still need to reply for the last chapter but I want to get this up). Again, I find myself nervous with this chapter. I finally get comfortable with Damon's mind and now I am in Elena's. But thank you, thank you, thank you for the support and pointing me in the right direction. I have to also thank **latbfan **for just brainstorming with me and asking me a ton of really good questions. And to everyone else. Anyway, I'm rambling and exhausted. PS Excuse any mistakes. I rushed to type this up from my notebook (I never handwrite stories but I have with this one?)_

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Chapter Four

Elena must get back to basics before she rips someone apart for looking at her the wrong way. Not that she does that anymore. Or hasn't in a long time. Not that she would–

She starts over.

"Here is my passport," she says aloud in her apartment, a hollow place filled with beautiful things–the pewter pot with fresh basil, the tin ceiling in the kitchen with just a touch of patina in some places, the original moldings with its layers and layers of ceiling.

Once she believed a terrifying lie: _if I surround myself with beautiful things (pink and white peonies, china cups to drink french press out of, sprigs of lavender in mason jars) then I will live a life of beauty. _She corrects herself: _then I will die a life of beauty. _

Her apartment is all she ever wanted it to be and yet it does not matter at all. One day she finished installing the crystal antique doorknob and looked around her and felt the emptiness. It wasn't a tomb. It couldn't be; it was warm and cozy (just look at that cashmere throw Caroline probably spent a fortune on). Maybe it is more like a womb then, somewhere safe, preparing her for someplace else.

Or something.

She feels the thin, blue leather passport booklet with a photograph of herself inside. They made her pull back her hair and told her not to smile and it wasn't hard to do at all because the nerves were already starting. Sure enough, she looks a bit frightened in the photograph, or at least startled, as if someone opened the drapes while she slept, just threw them open. She lies to herself when she looks at it: _I do not look sad. _

There is nothing so solitary as a passport and a single airplane ticket.

Caroline calls her everyday before the trip. "Are you really ready?" Elena imagines Caroline nodding with concern and who would have thought Caroline would grow up in death to be mother, sister, friend, touchstone in Elena's pocket, one of the last of the old guard.

"Yes," Elena replies. "I am."

"I just want you to be sure," Caroline continues. "And not because I don't want you to be with Damon. I mean, I know...So it's _Damon_, right?" Caroline blurts out in her typical word vomit. "And yeah, I always thought it was going to be Stefan. Blah, blah, blah. And I know I said that you and Stefan were epic and you _were_." She sighs but then grows so very serious. "You were epic in the way that first loves are supposed to be, you know?"

"Yes," Elena manages to smile against her cell phone. "I know."

"But it's Damon and you really, really, really–"

"I get it, Caroline."

"Well," Caroline whines, "It's not like you don't know but you really broke his heart. And even though _I _know why, and _you _know why, and I _totally _get it by the way," Caroline takes a breath. "I totally get your reasons, you know that right?"

"Of course you do," Elena replies softly. "Of anyone, you understand best. No one else in my life can."

"So, what I'm saying is: what if he doesn't show?" Elena imagines Caroline biting her lip. "Will you be okay? Maybe you should trade in your ticket and come to New York. We'll shop and shop and shop. Because...what if he doesn't come for you?"

_I will always choose you._

"I can't think about that. And I can't come to New York. It's time for me to go to him and see..."

The pause is long and somehow awkwardly necessary.

"Just be careful, you know," Caroline whispers. "Who even knows what a broken heart looks like on Damon?"

_I can tell you, _Elena think. _I took a scalpel down the center of his chest and opened up his skin with my finger nails. The muscle was thick and strong, pink with use. I tore it viciously with my teeth. Like a raw steak ripped, there were no pieces to puzzle back together and when he bled I didn't even want to drink the lovely redness because it wouldn't taste of blood but of tears instead._

_That's what I did to him._ Figuratively speaking.

"He'll be there," Caroline encourages at last. "He'll be there."

Elena is not so sure but she is going to see him. It is time. She is going, going, and before she knows it, she is gone.

* * *

"I didn't know if you would come," she says at last, looking up at him.

Elena knows better than most that when you are without a person, the memory of them can weaken in potency. She forgot about the tiny freckles on her mother's nose until she found an old photograph, taken too close, her mother laughing and waving away the camera. Elena is prone to twist her daylight ring around her finger and one day it hit her that Miranda did the same thing with her wedding band. The thing is–you don't just forget, you remake. Her dad's jokes are always funnier, his food more delicious in her memories than they were in reality.

So naturally Elena wondered how her own memory would distort Damon. His eyes could not be as blue as she remembered. His brow probably could not furrow as intensely. His wit could not be _as _dry. His lips...

But when she looks up at him, his eyes really are that blue, the memory of him perfectly preserved. And it has nothing to do with the fact that he is a vampire.

"I didn't know," she repeats. Her hand hits the pyramid of mini vodka bottles and they fall to the floor with a clatter.

"Whoospie," Damon chirps. "Looks like someone got sloshed on the plane."

"I'm not drunk, Damon," she defends. But saying his name is like a relief, like a human coming up for air after being held under water. "Just medicated. I didn't know if you would come."

"Well I did," he replies. And then he is extending a hand down to help her up. She hates her stupid memory, how it flashes back to a cheers over whiskey and her whispered confession: _I wanted to dance with you today, _when he stood and grinned, extending a hand just like this.

She takes it and suddenly her stomach is full of champagne bubbles. Her face feels hot. She feels home, her hand cupped in his, and there is electricity running all throughout her body. Is it the same for him?

Just like her memory in front of the fireplace that first night they were ever together, when she stands fully, she sways a little, almost as if they are dancing, as they danced that first night. And like that night, they come together so quickly, kissing so desperately, so neither knows who reached for the other first.

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_A/N: I wish I didn't have to cut it there. But I wanted to give you a taste of Elena's life as she is coming to Damon. Hopefully she sounds like a more grown up version of herself? And Caroline sounds like Caroline? And the next chapter will be full to the brim of Damon and Elena, together. Please do let me know what you think with my go at Elena! xo, LDI_


	5. Chapter 5

_A/N: THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THE FEEDBACK. I am in the middle of answering! I have also forgotten this literally four times. I am on tumblr at la donna ingenua so come find me if you are there! Also, I must thank __**latbfan **__for her quality, in depth conversations about Elena and Damon. Thank you for all the brainstorming help. Most importantly, I must thank __**love of escapism**__, my beta, for this chapter. Before I wrote it, I received horrible personal news. Just really horrible. But I wanted the distraction of writing, especially this particular distraction, but it was just not _there. _I knew I wasn't at the top of my game and the chapter was not as fluid as normal, but I sent her the chapter and was honest. She gracefully helped me to build out this chapter into what it is. Thank you so much, beta friend. Here it is. This chapter, more than any others, has me on pins and needles. I am dying to know what you think. PS We are rated M now!_

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Chapter Five

In the days leading up to buying her ticket and deciding to send the last postcard, Elena tried to prepare herself for Damon and the torrent of unexplainable feelings he brings to the surface of her unbeating heart. As a seventeen year old former cheerleader/orphan, she didn't then own the vocabulary to describe the attraction, the chemistry, the fear, and eventual love she felt for him. For so long she would not admit those very feelings to herself or to Stefan, especially not to Damon, because how do you talk about something when you don't have the words in the first place? How do you explain something that you cannot explain to yourself?

On the long plane ride, she takes deep breaths and tries to imagine their reunion but again words fail her and really nothing can prepare her for any part of him, most especially his lips, his tongue, his lingering and consuming kisses. She is as helpless and clueless as she was all those years ago in Denver, commanded by Stefan to "figure out" her feelings for Damon, as if she had not tried before, as if it was that easy. She remembered rushing out of the hotel room, knowing what would happen if he followed, which of course he did, and the powerful punch of desire coming over her like a wave, dragging her under.

In the summers, her parents liked to take Elena and Jeremy to the beach until they grew to the stage where friends trumped family. Once, she swam farther then she ever intended or was allowed, but at the same time, once she found herself there, the appeal of possible danger charmed her until a wave too big for her little body with her toothpick arms picked her up and curled her inside of itself. She could not fight her way out. She did not know which way was up. The wave held her captive until it decided to free her. She was nothing against that wave and she is nothing against the onslaught of Damon now.

They are Damon and Elena. This is just their way, she supposes. Words, the ones that matter, always come last for her. She is a girl of action; she saves her words for that private space, once a journal and now another hidden corner of the world.

They are both very obviously proving they are people of action and not of words.

Damon's hands start at her cheeks, lift beneath her hair and caress her face, as they always did before. He likes to start here, even now, as if he is still wondering if she is real. Her hands always go to his hair, not just because it is thick, black, and delicious, but because it keeps them pressed together. He pushes her back a step, knocks over another mini bottle and her back hits the wall she sat against, for several hours, waiting for him.

One of his hands drags downs her throat and between her breasts, over the fabric of her white dress and then around to her back. If Elena didn't just spend several hours in the airport, watching the European version of PDA, she might be embarrassed. But, most likely not.

Her thoughts are simple:

Damon.

Damon's hands.

Damon's lips.

She does her best to keep up, cups his cheek in her own hand and pulls him closer, her other palm slipping from his hair to just beneath his shirt at the nape of his neck. He kisses her with such intensity she stops thinking at all. She is just trying to keep up, biting his lip and soothing her tongue over it, to drag a moan out of him. He is pressing into her, even as he moves his head back an inch to hitch out a breath, "Cab," he announces with some amount of frenzy in his voice. Somehow–she doesn't even know how it is happening–her hand is reaching for him below the snap of his jeans as if they aren't in a public place and he gasps, turns, takes her hand in his and drags her behind him.

She yelps, suddenly aware they are in an airport. "Damon. My bags."

"Right," he huffs, dragging her back for her bag. It isn't his gentlemanly manners that have him carrying it for her, but the efficiency of it, and she smiles and presses herself to his back while they wait in line for the taxi.

"Elena," he growls.

It is dark and humid outside. No one notices if one girl, standing behind a man with startling blue eyes full of desire, slips her hands into the front pockets of his black pants. She feels the muscles in his thighs clench beneath her hands. "Elena," he grounds out again. "Get in that cab. Get in that cab right now." She scampers in front of him, hoping she isn't giving the world a show with her short dress but thinking perhaps Damon will enjoy the view.

He drills out his address to the driver, which she recognizes from her postcards. Before she knows more, his hand is warm on her thigh, dragging up the already short hem of her dress. She slaps her own hand on top of his to stop the dress' progress but then his nose is sweeping back her hair, finding it's way to skin. He bites her ear lobe so she nearly bleeds and then presses his open mouth to the skin of her neck.

_There. _Just there, he used to love to bite her there and pull at the blood until she healed. He seems to remember it as well and his lips scurry away from that spot, away from the memories.

"Damon," she whispers. "We shouldn't."

"You know better than to tell me that," he replies huskily into her ear.

"I just mean–" she shifts her legs because she desperately wants to crawl on top of him, to shift her hips on either side of him and to feel the pieces of them fit back together again. "This isn't why I came. I thought you would want to talk, would want an explanation."

"Overrated," he breathes out and his hand drags up her thigh.

"I'm not having sex with you in this cab," she tells him, grabbing his hand again. She hopes the cab driver doesn't understand any English.

"I'm not having sex with you in this cab either, Elena." he bites her ear again. Their hands tangle on the skin of her own leg. "It's called foreplay. I thought I taught you better than that." She heaves out a laugh; his tongue is doing something wicked to her ear. "That's what I thought."

By the time the cab screeches to a halt and they make their way up the stairs, (his hands, his hands, his hands are everywhere; she cannot think; she cannot breathe), she knows that if they do this, it will only make things worse for her. He is drawing a line in the sand: I will give you my body but my heart? Never again.

And her heart aches even as he unlocks the door, then cups her breasts in his hands, rubbing his thumbs across her nipples, through her dress. "Elena," he breathes.

"Wait," she whimpers at his touch. "We shouldn't. We can't." She repeats the same mantra but her hands are unbuttoning his shirt without asking her own permission.

"Turn off that busy brain of yours," he suggests. "Where the hell is the zipper on this dress?" He's pulled and tugged it every possible way.

"Buttons," she gasps when she pulls his belt loops so they are pressed together where it matters. "The little buttons in the back."

"Buttons?" he cries. "_Little _buttons?"

"Damon," she breathes against his exposed skin, licking and biting along his collar bone as she starts to unbutton his pants. Her hands cannot stop touching the skin of his torso, every inch they can find. He rips the back of her dress open. She barely feels it but she does feel his hands on her skin. Finally. "God," she gasps.

They stumble to the bed. She only has snapshots of his apartment in her head. It is very different than the boarding house, mostly white and creams. It might be sterile without all the luxurious fabrics, if not for the giant bed in the center of his room. He pushes her back on to it, pulls her skirt up. "Do you want me or not, Elena?" Even now, more than wanting her, he wants her to want him and her heart breaks again, impossibly, even as her body screams for him. He skims her panties off her legs and they are naked together and there is nothing left to say except the truth. "Yes, yes, hurry," she cries out.

He slams into her and she practically screams. Like she first thought, there is no preparing for Damon–not even the sheer indulgence of him. But, just as the pleasure threatens to overwhelm her, he stills completely inside of her, his arms clenched at her sides. Her hands grip his sweating back. She can hear his teeth grit together. He already regrets it. God, he already regrets it and tears smart in her eyes. "Damon," she whispers.

He does not respond, but he does not stop either. He just starts to move inside of her, thrusting and rolling his hips even as he pulls his torso away from her so none of his weight truly settles on her, the way she would like it to. The pleasure is keen but he does not press his lips to her temple or put his face in the curve of her neck. She looks up at him, even as she is gasping, and shuddering, tightening around him, her body betraying her heart, and his eyes are closed, pained. "Damon," she whispers again and he shakes his head at her, keeping his eyes closed against her, but continuing to pleasure her, nonetheless, as if since they started this, he is duty bound to finish.

There is nothing else to be done.

She turns her head away as she feels tears start in the back of her throat and with one final thrust, everything inside of her tightens around him and she is thrown over the sharp cliff of desire so she yells out his name helplessly, completely lost in the simple pleasure he provides, though she feels the loss of him, the ache, already. There are so many postcards between them, you see. She realizes she may have been closer to him when she was halfway around the world than in this moment when he is still inside of her.

She is still shuddering, tightening and loosening around him intermittently–his own climax silent; she sees blood on his lips where he bit through to keep quiet. He looks as if he is in pain when he pulls out of her and shoves away, sweating and cold. He doesn't touch her. Then his mask slides into place.

"So," he blurts out. He tries hard to be flippant. He does such a fantastic job she would like to slap him. "You were right. That was a complete mistake."

She curls her legs to her chest. She is still wearing the dress, ripped down the back, her underwear tossed somewhere in Damon's white apartment in Rome. At home, in San Francisco, she imagined his arms around her too many times to count. That was her comfort. But for the first time, she cannot recall what it felt like to ever be held by him, cuddled with love, need, and honest affection. "I'm sorry," she whispers.

"Really?" She can hear his smirk and it wounds her as much as the meaningless climax did. "I thought you _weren't _sorry? Wasn't that the last thing you wrote?" He sits up and runs a hand through his hair. "I'm still not sorry, Damon," he chirps imitating her.

"I should go," Elena rises from the bed and smooths the front of her dress. "I _am _sorry. I didn't come here–" She pauses and leans down to her bag. "I can write down the name of my hotel and if you want to contact me you can...The ball is in your court. I'm sorry. I just–" She is pushing her own hair back off her face. "I owe you an explanation when you are ready but I just can't...I shouldn't have come home with you."

"It's after one. You're going to find your hotel _now_? Do you know your way around Rome?" he asks drolly. He is back on the bed, his arm up over his head. "I'll sleep in the other room. You can sleep here." He can smell them on the sheets. She knows because she can smell him on her very skin. "You can leave in the morning. First thing."

"Okay," she replies. "I'll leave when the sun comes up."

"You do that," he tells her dryly as he walks naked out of the room, his backside making her feel more lonely than ever.

She forces herself to fall asleep in the dress and sheets that smell like him, like them. She forces herself to turn her brain off. She knows she will wake as soon as the sun starts to rise out of the huge window, right in front of her. She'll leave and then...Without an answer she forces herself to fall asleep. She catalogues the cheesy images of the postcards he sent her like some might count sheep.

The sky is just turning pink when she jerks awake, a lump already in her throat. She starts to sit up when a hand touches her waist. "Stay," Damon whispers. She hears the helplessness in his voice as his nose brushes her cheek and he begins to pull away from her. She knows that same helplessness well.

She reaches down and grabs his hand. "I'll stay," she replies in a quiet voice. "If you will." She takes his hand and wraps it around herself, pressing his hand between her breasts, where her heart does not beat.

_Like this, _she thinks while they are curled together, her bare feet touching his shins. _We belong like this._

"Sleep." She cannot read his tone–not now, not anymore–but he leaves his hand where it is and they both close their eyes. Like this.

* * *

_A/N: Please. I have to know what you think!_


	6. Chapter 6

_A/N: I am so sorry it has taken so long for an update. I have a very close family with cancer and a very bad prognosis and it's just been hard to focus on this story. Plus, I felt like I lost the thread of it. Hopefully, I found it again. Also, just a reminder this is rated M. Thank you ALL so much for your comments and support!_

* * *

Chapter Six

They wake at the same time which is not at all unusual for them, or wouldn't be unusual if they were back in that Ikea apartment from senior year–if she never demanded her freedom, if she never left him. For a moment, Elena keeps her eyes closed. She feels his arms around her, his palms to her skin, beneath her ripped dress, and she pretends they are in that apartment, not in this chic penthouse in Rome. She pretends this is how she wakes everyday. She pretends there are dishes in the sink and she started an argument with him the night before because he didn't take out the garbage full of blood bags. She pretends it is simple, that she is that girl and he is Damon, that he still loves her, that he made love with her last night instead of...

She takes a breath and lets it all rush back. The task in front of her feels overwhelming. She doesn't have the words to give him. The truth is, they have never been good at words. They are good at speeches, words pent up over time, that come tumbling out in front of fireplaces without finesse. She desperately wants to tell him everything with finesse. She cannot hurt him anymore than she already has. Right?

But then she opens her eyes and he is looking at her. The piercing blue is disconcerting and lovely at the same time. Finally, she whispers hoarsely (after all, she did cry a bit last night), "So what do you do here, in Rome?"

He shifts on the pillow they share and smiles, rolling his eyes up towards the ceiling in Damon's version of a bashful expression. "I model."

She quirks an eyebrow and though she knows he is definitely good looking enough to be a model she must give him a hard time because this is expected. "You model?" she asks skeptically.

"In the nude. For art classes."

A laugh escapes the back of her throat. She too shifts on the pillow. There faces are closer together. She wants to take his face in her hands and kiss him, long and luxuriously, unhurried. "You're joking."

"You've seen this body," he replies with his typical arrogance. "I thought I would do something good for the world, help these art students out."

"You're not joking then," she deadpans. "You model for art students."

He lifts a hand to brush the hair back behind her ear. He grins. She can barely stand it. "Nope."

She is aware that he put on pants in the middle of the night but that she is still in a ripped dress with no panties and a bra that is lost somewhere. But before she can say the words: _I should go, _he asks her, "So, what are you doing in San Francisco?"

_I miss you every day. In my beautiful apartment. I love it there but it is an empty sort of love because you are here and there are only postcards._

She blushes and he laughs at her and before they even realize it, he is nuzzling at her throat without thinking about it. "I blog," she sighs and again she pretends that this conversation is happening before everything changed.

"You blog?" he asks dubiously.

"Asks the male model," she replies and curves her body into his. "Well, it started out small and then there was this big following. They want to do a book."

"Wow," he replies, and means it. "Congrats."

But she isn't thinking about congratulations. She is thinking about his hands that have started to remove her torn dress. "Damon," she warns. "What happened last night...I can't do it again." She is mortified when her voice breaks on the last word.

"I can't either," he replies softly, his lips kissing the underside of her chin. "I–It won't be like that again. I promise." Then he is kissing her the way she wants to be kissed, slowly, thoroughly, as if they have all the time in the world for lingering kisses.

He never broke a promise to her. Always, he kept his word and even when they weren't together, when Stefan was in the picture, Damon told the truth, even to his detriment. "Damon," she murmurs.

"Let me," he asks her and she nods. He gently pulls the dress from her shoulders and her breasts spill out. His breath is hot against her nipples until he eagerly takes one into his mouth. She moans. She doesn't even need to pretend as if this is old times anymore. They could be anywhere; it does not matter; they are together. His other hand reaches for her other breast and she moans again, restlessly. Her hands run through his hair. His mouth mouth moves up her neck and this time does not skitter away from their old spot, though he does not bite her. But he does leave a hickey to last for several days while pushing her dress down her hips. She wants him but she wants it to be like it was before and she is unsure if she can have it both ways.

She realizes she is naked before him in the sunlight, that the ratio of clothing is completely off. He still wears his pants and a part of her is afraid to let him have this power over her. But his hand skims her hip and then winds it's way into her hair. She wants to undress him but she wants to give him this chance too. So when he rolls on top of her, it's he who undoes his jeans and starts to pull them down. Her toes hook onto the edges and do the rest of the job. His hand grasps her thigh. "I always loved those long legs of yours," he whispers into her mouth. They share breaths now. "So useful."

She wraps them around his hips. This time he does not close his eyes. They watch one another, even as she lifts her head to take his bottom lip into her mouth. They call out each other's names together.

* * *

They sleep again, naked and pressed up against each other. They sweat and they don't care. When they wake for blood, he pours it into glasses. "We're civilized now," he says and they laugh. She doesn't lift the sheets to cover her breasts; she doesn't want to hide anything from him anymore. She doesn't want to need to hide anything.

"Damon." She takes his hand. "I have things I need to tell you."

"I know you think you do," he replies slowly, measuring his words (so unlike him) and though she senses some uncertainty from him, he is all bravado. "But I...Maybe I don't want to hear it. Maybe I just want to live this."

"But Damon–"

"I don't want to hear why you left, Elena," he scowls. "Do we really need to dig that knife in deeper?"

"But don't you want to hear why I want to stay?" she cries, setting her glass of blood down with a clunk on his bedside table.

He is silent. She realizes he never asked her to stay in the first place.

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_A/N: Would love to know what you think. Hopefully, it will not be as long between updates!_


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